Jon Hammond is a musician, composer, bandleader, publisher, journalist, TV show host, radio DJ, and multi-media entrepreneur. He currently travels the world, playing gigs and attending trade shows.

THE EARLY YEARS
Jon Hammond was born in Chicago in 1953. His father was a doctor and his mother was a housewife. They both played the piano. In 1957, his parents moved Jon and his four sisters to Berkeley, CA, where his father worked in a hospital as head of the emergency room. When he was nine, Jon started accordion lessons. “In those days, they had studios where parents would drop their kids off after school for tap dancing and accordion lessons. There were accordion bands and they would compete against each other.”

“Every time I see a musician walking down the street I say, ‘Hey, where’s the gig?’ Because it doesn’t matter what kind of music you play, if you’re carrying an instrument–going to a rehearsal, or coming back from a repair shop, whatever it is–we all need our gigs. And that’s what the union is all about. Hopefully, we can all keep working and be supportive of everybody’s gigs. There’s room for everybody.”

Jon played his first gig at a senior citizens luncheon when he was eleven. Not only did he get a free lunch but he was paid $25 –a lot of money in those days. Jon says his father was supportive, but did not want him to pursue a music career. “He told me that music was a great hobby. He got me a wonderful professional accordion for my Bar Mitzvah, directly from John Molinari, one of the greatest accordionists who ever lived. It was a Guilietti Professional Tone Chamber accordion. That’s the accordion I won Jr. Jazz Champion on in 1966.”

In high school, Jon attended a private boys school in San Francisco. He was a class clown, and when it got to the point where he was going to be expelled, Jon took his accordion and ran away from home. He immersed himself in the San Francisco music scene and started playing organ in several bands. By 1971 he was in a four piece rock group called Hades which shared a rehearsal space with Quicksilver Messenger Service. “I was friends with their manager, Ron Polte, who also managed guitarist John Cipollina. We got to open for his band, Copperhead.”

Jon continued to play gigs in the Bay Area in different configurations, including a few gigs with a young Eddie Money. By this time Jon had become frustrated with the Bay Area scene. One night while playing a biker bar he got into a fight and his band didn’t come to his defense. “That was the last straw. I was angry and I said I wasn’t coming back.”

Jon in the early 70s

Jon moved to Boston in 1973 to attend the Berklee School of Music. He also got a gig playing in Boston’s Combat Zone backing up burlesque shows. When Jon saw one of his idols, pianist Keith Jarrett play in New York he told him he was going to Berklee and asked him for advice. “Keith looked me right in the eye and said ‘Berklee can be very dangerous for your music.’ It was like he popped this huge bubble. Years later I came to understand what he was talking about. You have to learn the fundamentals, but the music itself comes from a much deeper place. They can’t teach that, you have to find it yourself.”

When Jon’s teachers began sitting in on his gigs in Boston, he questioned why he was in school if the teachers were coming to play with him. He quit school, moved to Cape Cod and started playing with bandleader Lou Colombo. “He did all the private parties for Tip O’Neill. We played what they used to call the business man’s beat. On the gig it was forbidden to swing. It was like swing cut in half. So if you tried to go with the four, Lou would say, ‘Don’t swing it, don’t swing it.’ He pounded it into my head night after night.”

LATE RENT

In 1981 Jon took a trip to Paris where he broke through his writers block and wrote some of his best music. He returned to New York with his new tunes and started a production company with the idea of getting a record deal for a friend that had played on a #1 hit record. After months of pounding the pavement with no results, Jon realized he had better work on his own music before his money ran out. He took the last of his savings, including his upcoming rent money, and went into the studio to record what came to be known as “The Late Rent Sessions”.

The session had Todd Anderson on tenor sax, Barry Finnerty on guitar, Stephen Ferrone on drums, and Jon on B3. They recorded at Intergalactic, the last studio that John Lennon recorded in. Jon had no luck getting a record deal for his new project, but he did get gigs in New York with his band Jon Hammond and the Late Rent Session Men.

n 1982, Jon found out about public access television and the idea that anyone could produce a show and get it on TV. He started broadcasting on Manhattan’s public station in 1984. “I decided I was going to produce a radio show on TV. The first episodes showed just my tapping foot and my voice. It was a gimmick. We had graphics that were synchronized to go with the music. It worked out well. People dug it.” Within a few weeks, Jon was interviewed and featured in Billboard Magazine. The Jon Hammond Show was considered an alternative to the clips on Cable TV. “MTV was still in its infancy. We had a concept that was revolutionary. My phone started ringing and we were the hot kids on the block.”

LIVING ABROAD

Jon continued to play gigs in New York and produce his TV show. In 1987, he went to his first trade show (NAMM) where he was introduced to Mr. Julio Guilietti, the man who built his accordion. He then began traveling to trade shows and making contacts with musicians and companies around the world, including Hammond Suzuki. “They gave me the Hammond XB-2, the first really powerful portable Hammond organ. Glenn Derringer, one of my all-time heroes, presented it to me. I got one of the first. Paul Shaffer from the Letterman Show got the other. At the time there was only one EXP-100 expression pedal–we had to share the pedal. I used the pedal for my gigs and when Paul needed it I would bring it over to him at 30 Rockefeller Center on my bicycle.”

In the early 90s, when his New York gigs began drying up, Jon was encouraged to go to Germany. “It was a hard time. My father had just died and there were very few gigs. I got the XB-2 organ right when I needed it, so I decided to take a chance. I bought a roundtrip ticket to Frankfurt with an open return. I went with 50 bucks and stayed for a year. When I came back, I had 100 bucks.”

Jon stayed at a friend’s house and played a borrowed accordion on the street until he could get a band together. “I played on the street until my fingers turned blue and would collect enough money to get some fish soup. After about two weeks I got a call—I had put a band together and had 3 gigs coming up. A TV show had heard my story and wanted to do a story on me. At the first gig 19 people came; the second only 15 people came. Then I got the little spot on TV. When I came to the third gig people were lined up down the street. When I walked up I thought they were having an art exhibit. When they said, ‘No, they’re waiting for you.’ I choked up, I couldn’t even talk. So I’ve been playing there every year since. The people in Germany really saved my musical career at a time when very few things were happening for me in New York or San Francisco. I have a really good following in Europe. I keep busy as a musician in the States, playing hospitals and assisted living places, but my band dates I pretty much play overseas.”

Jon’s Late Rent Sessions was eventually released on a German label and received modest airplay. During the 90s he travelled back and forth to Europe, spending a year playing gigs in Paris, and eventually settling in Hamburg. Since then he has released two more albums and has played gigs in Moscow, Shanghai, and Australia. With the help of the internet, Jon is able to produce his TV show anywhere.

PRESENT DAY

In the mid-2000s Jon produced Hammondcast, a radio program for CBS that aired in San Francisco at four in the morning and was rebroadcast before Oakland A’s games. “When the baseball games played in the afternoon, my show would play for about 20 minutes and then it was pre-empted. I had a lot of fun with that.” His guests included Danny Glover, Barry Melton from Country Joe & the Fish, and many local people. “It took me awhile to figure out that I had permission to broadcast anything I wanted. I could play the London Philharmonic or Stevie Wonder. My tag line was ‘Hello, Hello, Hello! Wake up or go back to sleep…’”

Today, Jon continues to visit tradeshows and is determined to keep doing everything he does as long as he can. “I made a pact with my longtime co-producer, guitarist Joe Berger, that we are going to go to these trade shows until we are little old men with canes.”

Put up a little tent that says “Free Cell Phones” and the people will come flocking! Maybe it’s a good name for a band these days – Jon Hammond

Real nice old car just blew my doors off on the 280 Freeway! He had the hammer down, looking real sharp, Jon Hammond

Hamburg Germany — Route 66 Hamburg Street P.R. Team – Mr. Berger and Mr. Hammond, thanks for the super cool T-Shirts Jens! They’ve been seen on TV and all over the place.

‘Return of The Student’ – 40 years later! Jon Hammond sits down with his piano teacher Tony Germain at Berklee College of Music in Boston MA exactly 40 years to the day that they first sat down at the piano together at 1140 Boylston Street in the Beantown – excellent interview! As seen on The Jon Hammond Show – MNN TV – Manhattan Neighborhood Network Channel 1 – TV Producers of Manhattan Neighborhood Network [MNN]

Anaheim CA — it was great meeting Rafael Feliciano at end of last NAMM Show…close friend of my friend Raul Rekow, I knew that Raul had been ill lately but I am shocked to hear he just died, this is terrible! Raul was the most healthy cat I ever met, terrible loss! So saddened to hear about, sorry for your loss Rafael and all the people who knew this great great Conguero! rest in peace Raul, Jon Hammond

2nd image – My friend Raul Rekow on the Carlos Santana Band with Carlos onstage there, Alex Ligertwood was on the band then…I shot this in Paris 1981 – Jon Hammond

I was in a band with the 2 Eddie’s in 1970-’71, Eddie was an excellent guitarist and vocalist. My deepest condolences go out to the Sorenson Family, Eddie Money and all Eddie’s friends. I have just been informed of this very sad news Eddie Sorenson has died.
Sincerely, Jon
*Photo at BB King’s NYC, either on Eddie’s bus or backstage – JH

Keeping the tradition Tino! and we had a lot of fun, much more coming too! – JH spcl. thanks / dankeschön Joe Berger, Michael Falkenstein, Professor Klaus Maier founder of Hammond Deutschland, musikmesse​, The NAMM Show​, Suzuki Musical Instruments​ Team – International project coming to a theater near you soon! – the sound at the heart of Funk Soul Blues Gospel and don’t forget Classical and Theater Organ – with original music from Jon Hammond Band​ coast to coast and around the world!

Jon Hammond Show cable access TV show broadcast for 03/28/2015, Jon’s band performing in jazzkeller Frankfurt original composition “Get Back in The Groove” – exclusive footage from Jon Hammond Show of the late great Dave Van Ronk followed by radio interview footage with Alan Pasqua and Jon Hammond just before Alan’s concert with Allan Holdsworth recorded for DVD, then never-before-seen footage Jon filmed of Michael Brecker, the late great jazz tenor saxophonist in performance with Barry Finnerty’s band in Michael’s club Seventh Avenue South he co-owned with his brother Randy Brecker in Greenwich Village – wrapping up the show, a wonderful segment of Joe Franklin on mic with Jon Hammond, Joe Franklin was the King of Radio & TV

We just played an amazing concert with for sure the Best Band in The
Land! In 13th Century Castle under the full moon rising, it was totally
magical – the musicians played so great under the direction of Michael
Leuschner, the pride of The North – Das LaJazzO / Das
Landesjugendjazzorchester M-V, this is the Future of Music Folks! In the
tradition of the legendary jazz big bands of Duke Ellington, Count
Basie, NDR Bigband – we played the arrangements of the late great
Britische Komponist und Arrangeur Steve Gray written for Jimmy Smith’s
last concert with NDR, this band did everybody proud! Dankeschön,
tonight we play in Rostock! Be there or be square…and “Don’t Forget
Your Hat!” – Jon Hammondhttps://www.facebook.com/events/846845685410695/
“Organ meets Bigband” feat. Jon Hammond:
Today at 8:30pm
Starts in about 11 hours · 59°F Mostly Cloudy

Get Back In The Groove by Jon Hammond Funk Unit on the Acoustic Nation NAMM Stage in Concert – Artist Infohttps://www.namm.org/summer/2015/events/jon-hammond-funk-unit
Joe Berger: Guitar
Roland Barber: Trombone
Louis Flip Winfield: Percussion
Jon Hammond: Organ
Cord Martin : Tenor Saxophone
Genre:
Jazz JON HAMMOND Instruments: Organ, Accordion, Piano, Guitar Attended: Berklee College of Music 1974, City College San Francisco Languages: English, German Jon is closely identified with the two main products of his career, the Excelsior Accordion and the Hammond Organ. Musician: Jon Hammond is one of the premier B3 PLAYERS in the world. Jon has played professionally since age 12. Beginning as a solo accordionist, he later played Hammond B3 organ in a number of important San Francisco bands. His all original group HADES opened shows for Tower of Power, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Michael Bloomfield. Eddie Money and Barry Finnerty became musical associates. Moving East he attended Berklee College of Music and played venues as diverse as Boston’s “Combat Zone” in the striptease clubs during the ’70’s and the exclusive Wychmere Harbor Club in Cape Cod, where he was house organist with the late great trumpet player Lou Colombo and developed a lasting friendship with House Speaker Tip O’Neill. He also toured the Northeast and Canada with the successful show revue “Easy Living”, and continued his appearances at nightclubs in Boston and New York. Subsequently Hammond lived and traveled in Europe, where he has an enthusiastic following. TV/Video Producer: In 1981 Jon formed BackBeat Productions. Assisted by Lori Friedman (Video by LORI), the innovative TV show “The Jon Hammond Show” became a Manhattan Cable TV favorite. Jon’s “Live on the street” video style included news events, as well as live music/video clips of Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Butterfield, Jaco Pastorius, John Entwistle, Sammy Davis Jr., Percy Sledge and many others. The weekly show is now in it’s 32ns year and has influenced the broadcasts of David Letterman and others. Billboard Magazine hailed Jon’s show as “The Alternative to MTV”

The Tubes – Band Tonight in Bremen Germany ladies and gentlemen! – Coffee Time with The Tubes’ Rick Anderson and Prairie Prince – Jon Hammondhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tubes
L to R Rick Andrson, Jon Hammond, Prairie Prince
Wiki:
The Tubes is a San Francisco-based rock band whose 1975 debut album included the hit single “White Punks on Dope”. During its first fifteen years or so, the band’s live performances combined quasi-pornography with wild satires of media, consumerism, and politics.[citation needed] They are perhaps best remembered for their 1983 single “She’s a Beauty”, a top 10 U.S. hit with a frequently-played music video in the early days of MTV; and in the 1980 film Xanadu singing the rock portion of the cross-genre song “Dancin'” opposite a big band.
Phoenix, Arizona, United States
Genres Rock, punk, hard rock
Years active 1972–present
Labels A&M, Capitol
Website Official website
Members Roger Steen
Prairie Prince
Rick Anderson
Fee Waybill
David Medd
Past members Vince Welnick†
Bill Spooner
Michael Cotten
Bob Mcintosh
Re Styles
Mingo Lewis
Jane Dornacker†
David Killingsworth
Gary Cambra
The Tubes started as a group of high school friends from Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona. Two Phoenix bands, the Beans and The Red, White and Blues Band, both relocated to San Francisco in 1969 and eventually merged. The new band’s core membership remained largely intact for more than a decade: Fee Waybill (real name John Waldo Waybill) (vocals), Bill “Sputnik” Spooner (guitar, vocals), Roger Steen (guitar), Prairie Prince (real name Charles L. Prince) (drums), Michael Cotten (synthesizer), Vince Welnick (piano), and Rick Anderson (bass). Singer Re Styles (born Shirley Marie MacLeod) (vocals) and ex-Santana percussionist Mingo Lewis were also fixtures for much of the band’s early history.[1]

Show business excess was a common theme of the band’s early work, with Waybill sometimes assuming the onstage persona of “Quay Lewd” (a pun on Quaalude), a drunk, drugged out, barely coherent lead singer, wearing flashing glasses and stilt-like tall platform shoes.

Debut album[edit]
The Tubes’ first self-titled album, The Tubes (1975), was produced by Al Kooper. The track “White Punks on Dope” was an “absurd anthem of wretched excess” and a tribute to their rich, white teenage fan base in San Francisco.[citation needed] Since then the song has been covered by Mötley Crüe, and the German rock musician Nina Hagen took the tune and set new lyrics to it (not a translation of the original lyrics), titled her work TV-Glotzer (“Couch Potato”), and used this song as the opening track of her own debut album Nina Hagen Band, released 1978 on CBS/Germany Records. The album track “What Do You Want from Life?”, which became another of the Tubes’ signature songs, satirizes consumerism and celebrity culture and climaxes in a “hard-sell” monologue by Waybill, which name-checks celebrities such as Bob Dylan, Paul Williams and Randolph Mantooth, as well as well-known products of the period, including the Dynagym exercise machine and a host of American vehicles such as the Winnebago and the Mercury Montclair.

Second album[edit]
The Tubes’ second album, Young and Rich (1976) on A&M Records, was produced by Ken Scott. It featured “Don’t Touch Me There”, a suggestive duet between Waybill and Re Styles, which was arranged in classic “Wall of Sound” style by Jack Nitzsche. The song was co-written by Ron Nagle and Tubes dancer/vocalist Jane Dornacker, who died in a helicopter crash in 1986.

Third album, a live album, fourth album[edit]
The Tubes’ third album gave way to thematic experimentation with Now (1977) and after their live record What Do You Want from Live (1978), recorded during their record breaking run at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, England, the fourth album for A&M, Remote Control (1979) was a concept album produced by Todd Rundgren about a television-addicted idiot-savant. The cover of Remote Control (1979) shows a baby watching American panel game show Hollywood Squares in a specially made “Vidi-Trainer”.

Music videos[edit]
John Tobler opined that with their media savvy and theatrical skills, The Tubes were born to create rock video, but arrived several years too early.[2] However, the band did produce at least one collection of music videos, which were issued on the 1982 Pioneer Artists laserdisc “The Tubes Video” (this videodisc contained versions of twelve of the band’s hits, including “White Punks on Dope”, “Mondo Bondage”, “Talk to Ya Later”, and several others from yet-to-be-completed “The Completion Backwards Principle” album, in slickly produced music videos based on the group’s stage shows).

Live shows[edit]
The Tubes put their creativity and art skills mainly into their live performances, in which songs could be full-fledged production numbers, from a beach movie parody for “Sushi Girl”, to leather clad S&M hijinks in “Mondo Bondage”, to the game show antics of “What Do You Want from Life?” At their peak, their live act featured dozens of other performers, including tap dancers and acrobats. The Tubes’ stage productions were choreographed by Kenny Ortega and featured cast members Jane Dornacker, LeRoy Jones, Michael Holman, Michael Springer, Cindi Osborn, Heline Gouax, and Mary Niland from 1975-1977. From 1978-1979, the cast included Sharon Collins, Caty Bevan, and Loryanna Catalano. The Completion Backward tour featured Shelly Pang, Cheryl Hangland, Joey Richards, and Cynthia Rhodes. From 1983-1985, Michelle Gray (who later married Todd Rundgren) and Cheryl Hangland were principal dancers. Several crew members — including Tour Manager Steve “Chopper” Borges, Lee Collins, and Gail Lowe — made frequent appearances on stage in various roles as well.[citation needed]

The Tubes’ live shows in the late 1970s and early 1980s were rife with allusions to mainstream film [Dr. Strangelove (1964), Rollerball (1975), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Grease (1978)] then-forgotten B-movies [Wild Women of Wongo (1958), Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)], music (Tom Jones, punk rock, a medley of Nelson Riddle television themes), contemporary pop culture (Patty Hearst, the Viking program), television (Let’s Make a Deal, Fernwood 2Nite, the anime Raideen), and literature (Nelson Algren’s A Walk on the Wild Side), presaging the subcultural reverence and over-the-top theatricality of later groups like The World/Inferno Friendship Society.[citation needed]

These shows were expensive to produce, however, and while they earned the band a reputation for being one of the most entertaining live acts of the time, by the early 1980s, they found themselves short of money.

Departure from A&M Records and tenure with Capitol Records[edit]
Their fifth studio album, the self-produced Suffer for Sound, was meant to complete the group’s contract with A&M. As its style marked a radical new direction for the band, A&M opted for a more conservative outtakes / B-sides / oddities selection titled T.R.A.S.H. (Tubes Rarities and Smash Hits) (1981).[3] The band was signed to Capitol Records by Bruce Garfield and Bobby Colomby, scaling back the live shows to cut costs and redesigning itself as a leaner ensemble with a view to release more accessible hits.

Fifth and sixth albums[edit]
Suffer For Sound was not released, so their fifth album release was The Completion Backward Principle (1981), another concept album, featuring the classic rock staple “Talk to Ya Later”. The album presented itself as a motivational business document, complete with shocking pictures of the band members cleaned up and wearing suits.[citation needed] The band also had their first Top 40 hit in the United States in 1981, “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore” (recorded almost entirely by Spooner, without Waybill’s participation). The sixth studio album, Outside Inside (1983), followed a few years later and yielded a few hits, including the number 10 (USA) hit “She’s a Beauty”.

Seventh album and departure from Capitol Records[edit]
In 1985, the band teamed up with Todd Rundgren again for their seventh album, Love Bomb. With Bruce Garfield and Bobby Colomby dropped by Capitol in the company-wide layoffs that took place pre-reorganization, like many of their label mates The Tubes also were released, however, this occurred just as they were going on tour in support of the album. The band found it necessary to self-finance the tour as a matter of respect to honor their commitment to their fans. Between this tour’s self-financing and the band’s continued self-financing of their San Francisco recording studio built in 1980, the tour left the band in a half million dollars in debt, obliging them to play lesser expensive and smaller venues for a year to pay off their financial commitments.[3]

Waybill departs[edit]
Fee Waybill had already released an unsuccessful solo album (Read My Lips, Capitol Records) in 1984, but during this time, he had also happily enjoyed a fruitful writing partnership with fellow Capitol Records label mate Richard Marx, their most popular and well known collaboration being “Edge of a Broken Heart”, recorded by the female band Vixen. Waybill left the band in 1986 [“Fee broke up”, one band member said],[citation needed] leaving the band without a lead singer.

Personnel changes[edit]
Later in the year the remaining members of the band took on a longtime friend from Phoenix, Arizona, David Killingsworth, as lead vocalist. Killingsworth was the singer in the Red and White Blues Band with Prairie and Roger. Michael Cotten relocated to New York to pursue a career based on his artwork, stage design and production, and is considered one of the country’s top production designers. In the fall of 1988, Bill Spooner traveled his final tour with the band and left in early 1989. Vince Welnick departed as well to take to the road with Todd Rundgren in 1989 and then joined the Grateful Dead in 1990. Gary Cambra joined on keyboards and guitar in 1989. He and Roger Steen took over most the lead vocal duties after Killingsworth left in early 1990.

Waybill returns[edit]
In 1993, Fee Waybill rejoined the band. This lineup toured Europe and released two albums, a compilation and the 1996 album Genius of America. David Medd joined in 1996 to play keyboards alongside Cambra. In 2001, the band released a live CD, The Tubes World Tour 2001, and continued to tour.

Reunions[edit]
On April 22, 2005, a reunion show took place at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz, CA, with Waybill, Steen, Anderson, Spooner, Welnick and Cotten. 2005 also saw the release of their live album Wild in London.

In July 2015, the Tubes started a European and U.S. tour, including dates in Germany, Sweden, the UK and the United States and featured 5 band members (Fee Waybill, Roger Steen, Prairie Prince, Rick Anderson & David Medd).

The Tubes Project and other milestones[edit]
Michael Cotten started “The Tubes Project” in 2005, to save and digitize the band’s reel to reel and video tape archive. The collection had been kept in the closet of Tubes fan club president Marylin Wood’s son after being discarded in the late 1980s. Included in the vault are full color shows taped for TV at Bimbos in San Francisco, 1975 and VARA TV from the 1977 European tour. Over 70 interviews were conducted with band members, crew, managers, cast and colleagues such as Re Styles, Todd Rundgren, Al Kooper, Devo and David Foster. Hundreds of photos were scanned and compiled from band members and fan collections for use in the hour and half documentary.

After leaving the band, Jane Dornacker formed the band Leila and the Snakes and later worked as a traffic reporter. She was killed in a helicopter crash in 1986, whilst giving a live report.

In April 2005, the band reunited for a concert at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz, California. It would be the last performance of The Tubes to include Vince Welnick, and the last time the full line up appeared in public.

Pianist Vince Welnick, who suffered from depression, committed suicide on June 2, 2006.

Gary Cambra left the band in 2006 leaving David Medd as their sole keyboardist.

On September 23, 2007, the remaining members of the Tubes reunited in Phoenix for their induction into the Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame.

On November 10, 2009, “Mondo Birthmark” a CD of previously unreleased rarities was released through the label Fuel 2000. The package was designed by Michael Cotten and Prairie Prince with rare photos and interviews of the group. The demos also feature former member Bob Macintosh on drums.
1972: Tubes appear in Mitchell brothers pornographic film Resurrection of Eve as Jesus Bongo and the Millionaires.
1973: Opened for the New York Dolls at the Matrix, Iggy Pop at Bimbos, and Led Zeppelin at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.
1974: Tubes shoot “video demo” at California Hall, which lands a record deal at A&M Records, Cotten/Prince paint “Flying Record” mural on A&M sound stage.
1975: Tubes play for two weeks of shows at David Allen’s nightclub The Boarding House in San Francisco, several sell-out dates at The Roxy in Los Angeles and The Bottom Line in New York. On December 31, they sell out Bill Graham’s Winterland Ballroom.[4]
1976: Held residency at Bimbos in San Francisco for one month, Prairie Prince dubbed “The One, The Only” by columnist Herb Caen. Tubes hold “Talent Hunt” at the Boarding House hosted by Martin Mull; Robin Williams is contestant but loses.
1977: Held residency at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco for one month, the Whisky a Go Go nightclub in Los Angeles for two shows a night for one month, and Hammersmith Odeon in London for a week.
1978: Headlined the Knebworth Festival with Frank Zappa and Peter Gabriel. On April 3, The Tubes performed live with Dolly Parton on Cher… Special, in the “Musical Battle to Save Cher’s Soul Medley”. As the title would imply, the performance was a duel between the forces of good and evil to determine where Cher would spend her eternal destiny. Dolly Parton was dressed in white and, with a team of brightly clad singers, portrayed an angelic host while The Tubes, dressed in black leather and performing “Mondo Bondage”, battled to send Cher’s soul into eternal damnation. The band also performed the song “Smoke (La Vie en Fumér)”, about a guy in a trenchcoat winning over a girl at a bar with his cigarette smoking technique, which employed giant, twelve-foot inflatable cigarettes. At the end of the number the dancers would bash singer Waybill with the giant cigarettes until he was crushed into the ground.[5]
1979: Tubes play Japan; Cotten/Welnick/Prince/Styles appear on Japanese soap opera. Tubes appear in Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine.
1980: Made an appearance in the film Xanadu singing the rock portion of the cross-genre song “Dancin'” opposite a big band.
1980: Sold out the Roxy Theatre for 12 shows
1981: Record Grammy nominated “The Tubes Video” at Shepperton Studios, one of the first long form video discs.
1981: Sang “Sushi Girl” and “Talk to Ya Later” on the television sketch comedy program SCTV, Episode #86 airing July 24.
1981: Appeared and sang, “Sushi Girl” and “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore” on Tomorrow with Tom Snyder.
1981: Compose the song “Road Map of My Tears” for the film Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, in which Waybill and Welnick appear, among other musicians, as the fictional rock group The Metal Corpses.
1982: Appeared in a commercial for Activision’s video game Megamania.
1983: Opened several dates for David Bowie on the Serious Moonlight tour and on this tour, among other highlights, they were the first artists to ever play the newly opened Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington. At the end of the Bowie tour, they played a few shows featuring their classic no-holds-barred theatrics in Portland, Oregon, and other west-coast cities.
1985: Tour with Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, play Radio City Music Hall.
1975 The Tubes
Released:
Label: A&M
Format:
113 —
1976 Young and Rich
Released:
Label: A&M
Format:
46 —
1977 Now
Released: May 1977
Label: A&M
Format:
122 —
1979 Remote Control
Released:
Label: A&M
Format:
46 40
1981 The Completion Backward Principle
Released:
Label: Capitol
Format:
36 — CAN: Gold[6]
1983 Outside Inside
Released:
Label: Capitol
Format:
18 77
1985 Love Bomb
Released:
Label: Capitol
Format:
87 —
1996 Genius of America
Released: October 15, 1996
Label: Critique
Format:
— —
2002 Hoods from Outer Space
Released: May 22, 2002
Label: Brilliant
Format: 1 Audio CD
— —
2003 White Punks on Dope
Released: November 24, 2003
Label: Acadia Records (UK)
Budget re-release of The Tubes and Young and Rich
Format: 1 Audio CD
— —
2009 Mondo Birthmark
Released: November 10, 2009
Label: Fuel
Format: Audio CD
1981 T.R.A.S.H. (Tubes Rarities and Smash Hits)
Released:
Label: A&M
Format:
148 —
1992 The Best of the Tubes
Released: November 17, 1992
Label: Capitol
Format: 1 Audio CD
— —
2000 Millennium Collection: The Tubes
Released: October 17, 2000
Label: [A&M]
Format: 1 Audio CD
1978 What Do You Want from Live
Released:
Label:A&M
Format:
82 38
2001 The Tubes World Tour 2001 (live)
Released: October 10, 2000
Label: CMC
Format: 1 Audio CD; 1 Cassette
— —
2005 Wild in London
Released: October 2, 2006
Label: Snapper
Format:
— —
2006 Alive in America
Released: ’76 live broadcast from LA Shrine
Label: (unsanctioned) Renaissance
Format: Audio CD
— —
Singles[edit]
Year Song Peak chart positions Album
US US
Main.
Rock UK
[7]
1976 “Don’t Touch Me There” 61 — — Young and Rich
1977 “White Punks on Dope” — — 28 The Tubes
1979 “Prime Time” — — 34 Remote Control
1981 “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore” 35 22 60 The Completion Backward Principle
“Talk to Ya Later” 101 7 —
“Gonna Get It Next Time” — — — Sports Fans
1983 “She’s a Beauty” 10 1 79 Outside Inside
“Tip of My Tongue” 52 — —
“The Monkey Time” 68 16 —
1985 “Piece by Piece” 87 25 — Love Bomb
“—” denotes releases that did not chart.
Video albums[edit]
Year Video details
1981 The Tubes Video
Released: November 15, 1981
Label: Thorn EMI Video (Betamax and VHS), Pioneer Artists (LaserDisc), RCA Corporation (CED)
Format: Betamax, VHS, LaserDisc, CED
Nominated for a Grammy
1982 The Tubes: Live at the Greek
Released: November 1982
Label: Monterey Home Video
Format: Betamax, VHS

Get Back In The Groove by Jon Hammond Funk Unit on the Acoustic Nation NAMM Stage in Concert – Artist Infohttps://www.namm.org/summer/2015/events/jon-hammond-funk-unit
Joe Berger: Guitar
Roland Barber: Trombone
Louis Flip Winfield: Percussion
Jon Hammond: Organ
Cord Martin : Tenor Saxophone
Genre:
Jazz JON HAMMOND Instruments: Organ, Accordion, Piano, Guitar Attended: Berklee College of Music 1974, City College San Francisco Languages: English, German Jon is closely identified with the two main products of his career, the Excelsior Accordion and the Hammond Organ. Musician: Jon Hammond is one of the premier B3 PLAYERS in the world. Jon has played professionally since age 12. Beginning as a solo accordionist, he later played Hammond B3 organ in a number of important San Francisco bands. His all original group HADES opened shows for Tower of Power, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Michael Bloomfield. Eddie Money and Barry Finnerty became musical associates. Moving East he attended Berklee College of Music and played venues as diverse as Boston’s “Combat Zone” in the striptease clubs during the ’70’s and the exclusive Wychmere Harbor Club in Cape Cod, where he was house organist with the late great trumpet player Lou Colombo and developed a lasting friendship with House Speaker Tip O’Neill. He also toured the Northeast and Canada with the successful show revue “Easy Living”, and continued his appearances at nightclubs in Boston and New York. Subsequently Hammond lived and traveled in Europe, where he has an enthusiastic following. TV/Video Producer: In 1981 Jon formed BackBeat Productions. Assisted by Lori Friedman (Video by LORI), the innovative TV show “The Jon Hammond Show” became a Manhattan Cable TV favorite. Jon’s “Live on the street” video style included news events, as well as live music/video clips of Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Butterfield, Jaco Pastorius, John Entwistle, Sammy Davis Jr., Percy Sledge and many others. The weekly show is now in it’s 32ns year and has influenced the broadcasts of David Letterman and others. Billboard Magazine hailed Jon’s show as “The Alternative to MTV”

“Every time I see a musician walking down the street I say, ‘Hey, where’s the gig?’ Because it doesn’t matter what kind of music you play, if you’re carrying an instrument–going to a rehearsal, or coming back from a repair shop, whatever it is–we all need our gigs. And that’s what the union is all about. Hopefully, we can all keep working and be supportive of everybody’s gigs. There’s room for everybody.”

Jon Hammond is a musician, composer, bandleader, publisher, journalist, TV show host, radio DJ, and multi-media entrepreneur. He currently travels the world, playing gigs and attending trade shows.

THE EARLY YEARS
Jon Hammond was born in Chicago in 1953. His father was a doctor and his mother was a housewife. They both played the piano. In 1957, his parents moved Jon and his four sisters to Berkeley, CA, where his father worked in a hospital as head of the emergency room. When he was nine, Jon started accordion lessons. “In those days, they had studios where parents would drop their kids off after school for tap dancing and accordion lessons. There were accordion bands and they would compete against each other.”

Jon played his first gig at a senior citizens luncheon when he was eleven. Not only did he get a free lunch but he was paid $25 –a lot of money in those days. Jon says his father was supportive, but did not want him to pursue a music career. “He told me that music was a great hobby. He got me a wonderful professional accordion for my Bar Mitzvah, directly from John Molinari, one of the greatest accordionists who ever lived. It was a Guilietti Professional Tone Chamber accordion. That’s the accordion I won Jr. Jazz Champion on in 1966.”

In high school, Jon attended a private boys school in San Francisco. He was a class clown, and when it got to the point where he was going to be expelled, Jon took his accordion and ran away from home. He immersed himself in the San Francisco music scene and started playing organ in several bands. By 1971 he was in a four piece rock group called Hades which shared a rehearsal space with Quicksilver Messenger Service. “I was friends with their manager, Ron Polte, who also managed guitarist John Cipollina. We got to open for his band, Copperhead.”

Jon in the early 70s

Jon continued to play gigs in the Bay Area in different configurations, including a few gigs with a young Eddie Money. By this time Jon had become frustrated with the Bay Area scene. One night while playing a biker bar he got into a fight and his band didn’t come to his defense. “That was the last straw. I was angry and I said I wasn’t coming back.”

Jon moved to Boston in 1973 to attend the Berklee School of Music. He also got a gig playing in Boston’s Combat Zone backing up burlesque shows. When Jon saw one of his idols, pianist Keith Jarrett play in New York he told him he was going to Berklee and asked him for advice. “Keith looked me right in the eye and said ‘Berklee can be very dangerous for your music.’ It was like he popped this huge bubble. Years later I came to understand what he was talking about. You have to learn the fundamentals, but the music itself comes from a much deeper place. They can’t teach that, you have to find it yourself.”

When Jon’s teachers began sitting in on his gigs in Boston, he questioned why he was in school if the teachers were coming to play with him. He quit school, moved to Cape Cod and started playing with bandleader Lou Colombo. “He did all the private parties for Tip O’Neill. We played what they used to call the business man’s beat. On the gig it was forbidden to swing. It was like swing cut in half. So if you tried to go with the four, Lou would say, ‘Don’t swing it, don’t swing it.’ He pounded it into my head night after night.”

LATE RENT
In 1981 Jon took a trip to Paris where he broke through his writers block and wrote some of his best music. He returned to New York with his new tunes and started a production company with the idea of getting a record deal for a friend that had played on a #1 hit record. After months of pounding the pavement with no results, Jon realized he had better work on his own music before his money ran out. He took the last of his savings, including his upcoming rent money, and went into the studio to record what came to be known as “The Late Rent Sessions”.

The session had Todd Anderson on tenor sax, Barry Finnerty on guitar, Stephen Ferrone on drums, and Jon on B3. They recorded at Intergalactic, the last studio that John Lennon recorded in. Jon had no luck getting a record deal for his new project, but he did get gigs in New York with his band Jon Hammond and the Late Rent Session Men.

In 1982, Jon found out about public access television and the idea that anyone could produce a show and get it on TV. He started broadcasting on Manhattan’s public station in 1984. “I decided I was going to produce a radio show on TV. The first episodes showed just my tapping foot and my voice. It was a gimmick. We had graphics that were synchronized to go with the music. It worked out well. People dug it.” Within a few weeks, Jon was interviewed and featured in Billboard Magazine. The Jon Hammond Show was considered an alternative to the clips on Cable TV. “MTV was still in its infancy. We had a concept that was revolutionary. My phone started ringing and we were the hot kids on the block.”

LIVING ABROAD
Jon continued to play gigs in New York and produce his TV show. In 1987, he went to his first trade show (NAMM) where he was introduced to Mr. Julio Guilietti, the man who built his accordion. He then began traveling to trade shows and making contacts with musicians and companies around the world, including Hammond Suzuki. “They gave me the Hammond XB-2, the first really powerful portable Hammond organ. Glenn Derringer, one of my all-time heroes, presented it to me. I got one of the first. Paul Shaffer from the Letterman Show got the other. At the time there was only one EXP-100 expression pedal–we had to share the pedal. I used the pedal for my gigs and when Paul needed it I would bring it over to him at 30 Rockefeller Center on my bicycle.”

In the early 90s, when his New York gigs began drying up, Jon was encouraged to go to Germany. “It was a hard time. My father had just died and there were very few gigs. I got the XB-2 organ right when I needed it, so I decided to take a chance. I bought a roundtrip ticket to Frankfurt with an open return. I went with 50 bucks and stayed for a year. When I came back, I had 100 bucks.”

Jon stayed at a friend’s house and played a borrowed accordion on the street until he could get a band together. “I played on the street until my fingers turned blue and would collect enough money to get some fish soup. After about two weeks I got a call—I had put a band together and had 3 gigs coming up. A TV show had heard my story and wanted to do a story on me. At the first gig 19 people came; the second only 15 people came. Then I got the little spot on TV. When I came to the third gig people were lined up down the street. When I walked up I thought they were having an art exhibit. When they said, ‘No, they’re waiting for you.’ I choked up, I couldn’t even talk. So I’ve been playing there every year since. The people in Germany really saved my musical career at a time when very few things were happening for me in New York or San Francisco. I have a really good following in Europe. I keep busy as a musician in the States, playing hospitals and assisted living places, but my band dates I pretty much play overseas.”

Jon’s Late Rent Sessions was eventually released on a German label and received modest airplay. During the 90s he travelled back and forth to Europe, spending a year playing gigs in Paris, and eventually settling in Hamburg. Since then he has released two more albums and has played gigs in Moscow, Shanghai, and Australia. With the help of the internet, Jon is able to produce his TV show anywhere.

PRESENT DAY
In the mid-2000s Jon produced Hammondcast, a radio program for CBS that aired in San Francisco at four in the morning and was rebroadcast before Oakland A’s games. “When the baseball games played in the afternoon, my show would play for about 20 minutes and then it was pre-empted. I had a lot of fun with that.” His guests included Danny Glover, Barry Melton from Country Joe & the Fish, and many local people. “It took me awhile to figure out that I had permission to broadcast anything I wanted. I could play the London Philharmonic or Stevie Wonder. My tag line was ‘Hello, Hello, Hello! Wake up or go back to sleep…’”

Today, Jon continues to visit tradeshows and is determined to keep doing everything he does as long as he can. “I made a pact with my longtime co-producer, guitarist Joe Berger, that we are going to go to these trade shows until we are little old men with canes.”

The late great radio and TV broadcaster personality Al Jazzbeaux Collins in the studios of KCSM Jazz 91 with organist Jon Hammond – aka Al Jazzbo Collins, one of the greatest and most definitely coolest broadcasters who ever lived. *Note: I dearly miss Jazzbeaux, he was a huge inspiration to me personally. He broke out my music on the air back in New York on WNEW 1130AM huge powerful door he opened for me, we had a lot of fun together on both coasts – he introduced me to folks like Lionel Hampton, David Panama Francis, Lew Anderson band leader and Clarabell the Clown from It’s Howdy Doody Time! TV Show, Joe Bushkin pianist, and his Family the Collins Family – he knew every door man garbage man and taxi drivers on the street – rest in peace Albert! sincerely, Jon Hammond *including a clip from Live performance in Horizons Sausalito with funky James Preston drums on Jon Hammond Band https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_%22Jazzbo%22_Collins Albert Richard “Jazzbo” Collins (born January 4, 1919, Rochester, New York[1] — d. September 30, 1997, Marin County, California) was an American disc jockey, radio personality and recording artist who was briefly the host of NBC television’s Tonight show in 1957.

The name “Jazzbo” derived from a product Collins had seen, a clip-on bowtie named Jazzbows. Just as Martin Block created the illusion that he was speaking from the Make Believe Ballroom, Collins claimed to be broadcasting from his inner sanctum, a place known as the Purple Grotto, an imaginary setting suggested by radio station WNEW’s interior design, as Collins explained:

I started my broadcast in Studio One which was painted all kinds of tints and shades of purple on huge polycylindricals which were vertically placed around the walls of the room to deflect the sound. It just happened to be that way. And with the turntables and desk and console and the lights turned down low, it had a very cavelike appearance to my imagination. So I got on the air, and the first thing I said was, “Hi, it’s Jazzbo in the Purple Grotto.” You never know where your thoughts are coming from, but the way it came out was that I was in a grotto, in this atmosphere with stalagtites and a lake and no telephones. I was using Nat Cole underneath me with “Easy Listening Blues” playing piano in the background.
Collins grew up on Long Island, New York. In 1941, while attending the University of Miami in Florida, he substituted as the announcer on his English teacher’s campus radio program, and decided he wanted to be in radio. He began his professional career as the disc jockey at a bluegrass station in Logan, West Virginia. By 1943, Collins was broadcasting at WKPA in Pittsburgh, moving in 1945 to WIND in Chicago and in 1946 to Salt Lake City’s KNAK. In 1950, he relocated to New York where he joined the staff of WNEW and became one of the “communicators” on NBC’s Monitor when it began in 1955. Two years later, NBC-TV installed him for five weeks as the host of the Tonight show when it was known as Tonight! America After Dark in the period between hosts Steve Allen and Jack Paar.[2]

In 1957, Collins appeared, as himself, as the star of an episode of NBC radio’s science fiction radio series X Minus One. He also hung out with the beatnik hipsters in North Beach during that time. In 1959, he was with KSFO in San Francisco. While at KSFO he would often say that he was broadcasting “from the purpleness of the Grotto”. He often mentioned his assistant “Harrison, the long-tailed purple Tasmanian owl”. During the 1960s, he was the host of Jazz for the Asking (VOA), and he worked with several Los Angeles stations during the late 1960s: KMET (1966), KFI (1967) and KGBS (1968).

He officially changed the spelling of his name to Jazzbeaux when he went to Pittsburgh’s WTAE in 1969. He moved to WIXZ in Pittsburgh (1973) before heading back to the West Coast three years later. While in Pittsburgh, he briefly hosted a late night television show entitled “Jazzbeauxz (he spelled the possessive with a ‘z.’) Rehearsal”. The show had nothing to do with any actual rehearsal, and was entirely an eclectic sampling of anything that caught Collins’ interest at the time. One of those “interests” was a long-running hard-boiled-egg spinning contest. He conducted the program from a barber chair, as he had on a previous TV show.

In the early 1960s Collins hosted a morning TV program, “The Al Collins Show,” that aired on KGO-TV in San Francisco (the ABC affiliate). The format included light talk and guest appearances. The guest lineup typically included local or state-wide celebrities, and B-list actors, such as Moe Howard of The Three Stooges.

A popular segment on his show was the “no stinkin’ badges” routine. Al would politely request the main guest for that day don a Mexican bandit costume, complete with ammo belts crossing the chest, six-guns in holsters, a huge sombrero and large fake mustache. The guest then had to pose in front of cameras and for the TV audience. With pistols pointing at the camera lens the guest had to say (with emphasis) “I don’t got to show you no stinkin’ badges.” If the guest did not say it with sufficient sinister tone Collins made him or her repeat it until in Al’s opinion the guest got it right. Collins’ bit was a play on a famous exchange in the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. In one scene some obviously very bad bandidos try to pass themselves off to Bogart as federales (police). Humphrey Bogart’s character knows they are not federales but nevertheless asks to see some badges. The bandito-in-charge responds “Badges?! I don’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badge.” Collins reduced the guest bandit’s lines to the single phrase so it was easy for the guest to recite.

In 1976 Al Collins returned to San Francisco working at KMPX, followed by a three-year all-night run at KGO which drew callers throughout the West Coast. He always opened with Count Basie’s “Blues in Hoss flat”. He also worked a late night shift at KKIS AM in Pittsburg, CA in 1980. After returning to New York and WNEW (1981), he was back in San Francisco at KSFO (1983) and KFRC (1986). Then came one more run at WNEW (1986–90), and then he joined KAPX (Marin County, California) in 1990, and from 1993 until his death, Jazzbeaux did a weekly jazz show at KCSM (College of San Mateo, California).

He died on September 30, 1997, at the age of 78, from pancreatic cancer. — with Al “Jazzbo” Collins, Al “Jazzbo” Collins and James Preston at KCSM Jazz 91

Artist Bio:
JON HAMMOND Instruments: Organ, Accordion, Piano, Guitar Attended: Berklee College of Music 1974, City College San Francisco Languages: English, German Jon is closely identified with the two main products of his career, the Excelsior Accordion and the Hammond Organ. Musician: Jon Hammond is one of the premier B3 PLAYERS in the world. Jon has played professionally since age 12. Beginning as a solo accordionist, he later played Hammond B3 organ in a number of important San Francisco bands. His all original group HADES opened shows for Tower of Power, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Michael Bloomfield. Eddie Money and Barry Finnerty became musical associates. Moving East he attended Berklee College of Music and played venues as diverse as Boston’s “Combat Zone” in the striptease clubs during the ’70’s and the exclusive Wychmere Harbor Club in Cape Cod, where he was house organist with the late great trumpet player Lou Colombo and developed a lasting friendship with House Speaker Tip O’Neill. He also toured the Northeast and Canada with the successful show revue “Easy Living”, and continued his appearances at nightclubs in Boston and New York. Subsequently Hammond lived and traveled in Europe, where he has an enthusiastic following. TV/Video Producer: In 1981 Jon formed BackBeat Productions. Assisted by Lori Friedman (Video by LORI), the innovative TV show “The Jon Hammond Show” became a Manhattan Cable TV favorite. Jon’s “Live on the street” video style included news events, as well as live music/video clips of Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Butterfield, Jaco Pastorius, John Entwistle, Sammy Davis Jr., Percy Sledge and many others. The weekly show is now in it’s 30th year and has influenced the broadcasts of David Letterman and others. Billboard Magazine hailed Jon’s show as “The Alternative to MTV”. LINK http://youtu.be/7TApELTO1XI Head Phone

Jon Hammond theme song Late Rent on the occasion of 28th annual musikmesse Warm Up Party in the world famous jazzkeller Frankfurt and Jon’s birthday

with Peter Klohmann tenor saxophone, Giovanni Totò Gulino drums, Joe Berger guitar and Jon Hammond at the Sk1 Hammond organ – Late Rent is the theme song for Jon’s long-running cable TV show in New York City The Jon Hammond Show and HammondCast radio program http://www.HammondCast.com – special thanks to Frank Poehl for operating the camera – Jon Hammond Band

Jon Hammond theme song Late Rent on the occasion of 28th annual musikmesse Warm Up Party in the world famous jazzkeller Frankfurt and Jon’s birthday

with Peter Klohmann tenor saxophone, Giovanni Totò Gulino drums, Joe Berger guitar and Jon Hammond at the Sk1 Hammond organ – Late Rent is the theme song for Jon’s long-running cable TV show in New York City The Jon Hammond Show and HammondCast radio program http://www.HammondCast.com – special thanks to Frank Poehl for operating the camera – Jon Hammond Band

Mr. Hammond has toured worldwide since 1991 using the incredible Sk1 organ by Hammond Suzuki..™ “Classic Hammond Sound…In A Suitcase!”
The Jon Hammond Show is a funky swinging instrumental revue, featuring top international soloists. The show has universal appeal. Big Hammond orgel sound – 100% organic

Artist Bio:
JON HAMMOND Instruments: Organ, Accordion, Piano, Guitar Attended: Berklee College of Music 1974, City College San Francisco Languages: English, German Jon is closely identified with the two main products of his career, the Excelsior Accordion and the Hammond Organ. Musician: Jon Hammond is one of the premier B3 PLAYERS in the world. Jon has played professionally since age 12. Beginning as a solo accordionist, he later played Hammond B3 organ in a number of important San Francisco bands. His all original group HADES opened shows for Tower of Power, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Michael Bloomfield. Eddie Money and Barry Finnerty became musical associates. Moving East he attended Berklee College of Music and played venues as diverse as Boston’s “Combat Zone” in the striptease clubs during the ’70’s and the exclusive Wychmere Harbor Club in Cape Cod, where he was house organist with the late great trumpet player Lou Colombo and developed a lasting friendship with House Speaker Tip O’Neill. He also toured the Northeast and Canada with the successful show revue “Easy Living”, and continued his appearances at nightclubs in Boston and New York. Subsequently Hammond lived and traveled in Europe, where he has an enthusiastic following. TV/Video Producer: In 1981 Jon formed BackBeat Productions. Assisted by Lori Friedman (Video by LORI), the innovative TV show “The Jon Hammond Show” became a Manhattan Cable TV favorite. Jon’s “Live on the street” video style included news events, as well as live music/video clips of Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Butterfield, Jaco Pastorius, John Entwistle, Sammy Davis Jr., Percy Sledge and many others. The weekly show is now in it’s 30th year and has influenced the broadcasts of David Letterman and others. Billboard Magazine hailed Jon’s show as “The Alternative to MTV”. LINK http://youtu.be/7TApELTO1XI Head Phone

Jon Hammond theme song Late Rent on the occasion of 28th annual musikmesse Warm Up Party in the world famous jazzkeller Frankfurt and Jon’s birthday

with Peter Klohmann tenor saxophone, Giovanni Totò Gulino drums, Joe Berger guitar and Jon Hammond at the Sk1 Hammond organ – Late Rent is the theme song for Jon’s long-running cable TV show in New York City The Jon Hammond Show and HammondCast radio program http://www.HammondCast.com – special thanks to Frank Poehl for operating the camera – Jon Hammond Band

Jon Hammond theme song Late Rent on the occasion of 28th annual musikmesse Warm Up Party in the world famous jazzkeller Frankfurt and Jon’s birthday

with Peter Klohmann tenor saxophone, Giovanni Totò Gulino drums, Joe Berger guitar and Jon Hammond at the Sk1 Hammond organ – Late Rent is the theme song for Jon’s long-running cable TV show in New York City The Jon Hammond Show and HammondCast radio program http://www.HammondCast.com – special thanks to Frank Poehl for operating the camera – Jon Hammond Band

Mr. Hammond has toured worldwide since 1991 using the incredible Sk1 organ by Hammond Suzuki..™ “Classic Hammond Sound…In A Suitcase!”
The Jon Hammond Show is a funky swinging instrumental revue, featuring top international soloists. The show has universal appeal. Big Hammond orgel sound – 100% organic

Jon Hammond Show cable access TV show broadcast for 03/28/2015, Jon’s band performing in jazzkeller Frankfurt original composition “Get Back in The Groove” – exclusive footage from Jon Hammond Show of the late great Dave Van Ronk followed by radio interview footage with Alan Pasqua and Jon Hammond just before Alan’s concert with Allan Holdsworth recorded for DVD, then never-before-seen footage Jon filmed of Michael Brecker, the late great jazz tenor saxophonist in performance with Barry Finnerty’s band in Michael’s club Seventh Avenue South he co-owned with his brother Randy Brecker in Greenwich Village – wrapping up the show, a wonderful segment of Joe Franklin on mic with Jon Hammond, Joe Franklin was the King of Radio & TV